Treasure Hunt

Dear Madre, family, and friends,

This week has been really great. We did a lot of work with less actives because our amis were mostly all busy. Luckily the ward had given us a long list of less active members to visit so we had plenty to work on. First we tried to contact them over the phone and find out their addresses. Then we passed the ones that we couldn't phone. It was almost like a treasure hunt going around the city finding their apartments, but the only problem was that a lot of the treasure wasn't found. We got to a lot apartments where they didn't answer or we didn't have the code to the apartment or a phone number. Two of them answered but then hung up when we said who we were. But at the same time the disappointments made the successes even better. One of the best things that came out of our work was meeting a lady named E. She's from the Philippines. We had never met her before. We went to her apartment as our last visit of the day. When we arrived we didn't have the code but a little boy left us in to the building. From there we found her floor and knocked. She opened the door and invited us in! At first I had the impression she didn't really want us there, but the more we talked, the more she opened up. She told us about her work, how she felt tired and needed a vacation. Actually she works at a rest home! So in that way I was able to relate with her. I could understand a bit how she felt knowing that it's an exhausting job physically, emotionally, and mentally. But she has it much harder than I did because she has twelve hour shifts. I can't imagine that. Then we showed her the video "Because of Him". We asked her who Jesus Christ was for her and she bore the most beautiful testimony. She is so faithful. The trouble is she works most Sundays. She also told us about her daughter. How she would like her to be involved in the church but the daughter doesn't want anything to do with it. We're hoping we'll be able to visit her again while her daughter is there and also she lives with a nonmember. I am so grateful we found Elvie. I think she just needs some support and to be "nourished by the good word of God."

Finding her and a couple other less active members made all of the walking and planning and disappointment worth it. I'm so grateful to be doing this work of finding Christ's lost sheep. I know he loves all of them. In my studies I read this quote by Gordon B. Hinckley:

"The challenge now is greater than it has ever been because the number of converts is greater than we have ever before known. … Every convert is precious. Every convert is a son or daughter of God. Every convert is a great and serious responsibility.”

I think I'll just describe the transport here a little bit. Because the members are so spread all over Geneva, we have to take a variety of transportation to get everywhere. We mostly take buses and trams though. There are a lot of different lines that have routes. The route will usually get us most of the way to an apartment but then you'll have to walk a bit. Usually we spend about twenty minutes to get somewhere. The nice thing is you can contact people on buses so the time isn't all lost. To contact you usually just sit by someone or sit in a place with an empty place by you. Then you start by asking a question, giving a compliment, asking for help with a French word, etc. That way you can open a conversation. Most of the time people will ask you why you're here or something that will let you tell them about being a missionary. The sad thing is most people are just not interested in religion. It's so great just to find someone who's willing to talk to you about the church. Another tricky thing is that the busses and trams are very transient so you don't have much a window to talk. To get back to our house we go by train for a couple stops. Anyway, I hope that gives a bit of an idea what transport is like. It takes quite a lot of time in our day.

One cool thing on transport this week. I asked a lady to help me with a tense I was learning in French. Then we started having a conversation and it turns out she recognised me as a missionary and she had visited a Mormon family for a couple of days when she was an exchange student in the US! She said she liked how they had a big family. It was really cool. I wasn't able to get her contact information, but I gave her our card.

Somehow I've gotten the reputation of being a story teller. The first week with my companion Sœur S she asked me to tell her a story so I told her about my hike up on the B mountain. Then the next night she asked for another. So I told her about my speech about Cambodia (maybe not everyone knows that one) . Now she'll just give me a random topic to tell a story about. And also. Sœur W does too. Like yesterday she gave me the topic of Cucumbers or something green so I told her about canning cucumbers in Canada and also the story about Stasia buying greens for her pet rabbit. XD Anyway, I never thought of myself as a story teller but it's been fun. :)

One cool thing about my mission is that they are missionaries from all over! We have Italians, Spaniards, Danish, Canadians, French, Tahitiens, Dutch, English, Welsh, Mexican, and more! I love getting to know different cultures. For example I learned that the national vegetable of Wales is a leek!

I love you all!

Sœur Marriott

A mountain peak called "le môle"

 

A pretty path on our run